It's So Not Fair
by galaxy5war
Summary: In which Annabeth has a miscarriage, and they're not the same. Post-TLO/OOC/Dark!Percabeth. Rated T/M for mature themes. One-shot!


_oh shit she's back_

 **A/N: I was feeling really sad a few days ago, so I wrote this. To all the people who read this that are following my old story - I'm sorry, but it's now discontinued. While I was rewriting this into my computer, the song 1-800-273-8255 came on by my three favorite musicians (Logic, Khalid, Alessia Cara), so now I've fallen into despair. Shit, sorry to my readers.**

Jade smiled when the Jacksons walked into her home, but they didn't return the gesture. There's sadness radiating off of them, but not their son Noah. He immediately runs to play with her own daughter, Hailey. Jade doesn't know what's going on, so she assumes that Noah is at too young of an age to understand. They pull away from her welcoming hugs too quickly for their time of absence. They sit in the dining room, Jade hoping that they would explain what had happened.

She and Percy start up a casual conversation, but his heart didn't seem into it. But Annabeth just stared, so naturally, she followed her gaze. Her eyes looked through the open wall that connected the dining room and the living room, watching, staring, at Hailey and Noah laughing and giggling and Jade's so confused when Annabeth's raspy voice finally says, 

"That could be him every day." 

because she doesn't know if she means that Hailey and he could come over and play every day that was possible. She certainly didn't mind that - she was lonely being the only adult in her household after all - as long as Hailey was happy and she wasn't deprived of social interaction with people she actually liked that weren't the people she worked with then she wouldn't mind at all.

She noticed Annabeth's eyes swell with tears and her face pale before she rushes to the bathroom. She turned back to Percy who's eyes were stuck on the spot where Annabeth's back had once been. And oh God, his _eyes_ , they must've aged five years more than the rest of him. They had lost their sparkle of childish excitement and were replaced with dull, more mature eyes. His face was sunken and red and he was trying not to cry and Jade wished so badly that she could understand, but instead she spit out, " Y-You aren't the same since I last saw you guys."

That was a long time to be apart and Hailey was eager to see Noah outside of school because it was out of routine. "Something inside you two, like, died." 

And oh, _God_ , she shouldn't have said that because tears start running down Percy's face that he doesn't even bother to wipe away before he answers, "Yeah, someone did actually die inside of her." And then he's sobbing and by her he means Annabeth and suddenly she understood.

"Oh, _oh,_ I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, how could I have been so stupid? So blind?" She's beating herself up for something she couldn't control and she knows it, but she doesn't care.

"It's okay, you didn't know, it's o-" His voice cracks before he can finish and it takes him a minute to compose himself enough to say, "It's not okay, Jade, we're not okay. We've been through a lot, but nothing hurts like this a-and I don't know how much we can take." She understands what they're going through in a different way, something that happened that hurts like nothing else has before and suddenly you realize that there are so many different types of pain that humans can go through and you wish you can stop all of them but you can't. So she holds him so impossibly close and he buries his head into the crook of her shoulder and sobbed. 

She only looked up from rubbing Percy's back when she heard footsteps. Annabeth collapsed against Jade and her husband.

"It's not fair, it's so not fair. I know, I understand your pain. I wish I could just love your sorrow away, but I know I can't. But I also know that you can get through this like you have with everything else that you two have gone through. You know how to stay strong when most don't. I love you guys so much and I'm so sorry this happened to you. You don't deserve this. No one does." Jade tried to comfort them, but her words could only do so much. "You have a beautiful son and I know you want more, but you're so lucky to have made it this far, alright? I know you can make it farther and through this dark time."

"We could've had two." Annabeth's raspy voice supplied into Jade's shoulder.

"He should've been a big brother," Percy added.

Jade nods because she knows, "Shh, shh, we can't think about the could've's and the should've's, only the can's." They all cried for hours along with Hailey and Noah who joined their group hug. They stayed together all weekend in close quarters - a much-awaited reunion.

The Jacksons will keep this in mind on their road to recovery and the truth in those words.

Jade knows it will get better, but she's not sure when and it's so not fair. She can only hope they do too.

It's so not fair.

 **So, uh, that's that! Sorry...if you want to see more of this story and turn it into a two-shot, maybe a three-shot, please favorite and review!**


End file.
